Linda Richards: A Musical Magician

The strains of the 1970s song "Reunited" are going through my head.

 An old friend is back in town.

These are the things that make your heart sing... especially when songs are involved.

Songs are always involved when it comes to Linda Richards, the mastermind behind S.L.Y.M.I: Sing Like You Mean It. Linda's music education program strives to connect kids (young and old) in music with a meaning and meant to share a message. Linda's mantra: "Songs can change the world!"

Linda, an avid environmental educator, has a rich history, in both environmentalism & music. Working with Pete Seeger on the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, she developed a music program called the Power of Song. Linda uses music to enrich content, tying it to emotions while connecting kids to the outdoors, social awareness, & the importance of empathy, respect, & caring for our world.

It's through environmental education that I first met Linda Richards, 10 years ago, at a li'l river-side eco school that sadly no longer is there.
A friend of our science teacher, Linda came to enjoy our Earth Day assembly. There, the 2 of them decided that the following year they could orchestrate a far better assembly... especially if Linda came for two days--writing eco parodies with our elementary students on Day 1 so that they could then BE the assembly the following day. For 6 years, it was an annual Earth Week assembly... which truly made our hearts sing.

Fast forward. My eco school, Eagle Cove, closed in 2014, & all of my colleagues (& students) had to flee the nest. We did, we scattered, we landed, we compared notes, & I found myself thanking my lucky stars where I landed. Some of us did better than others. I was one of the lucky ones! Life moved on, & then with my help (& others), my new school became a green school last spring. Along the way, I shared my ECS eco-experience. In our new green scene, we were looking for an Earth Day Assembly 2017. Enter Linda Richards, & the circle of life. Hakuna Matata.

Linda spent a day at my school, entertaining the younger students in a lively assembly. She & each of our 3rd grade classes wrote eco-parodies.
Our day wrapped up with another assembly for grades 3-5 where the 3rd graders were part of the featured entertainment.

Ahh! To old times, familiar memories, & another crop of kids who get to experience the importance of environmentalism & social awareness through song.
It's a beautiful, wonderful thing.

Here are the 2 songs that Linda Richards wrote with our 3rd graders:

Take Me Out to the Ocean
sung to the tune of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame"

Take me out to the ocean,
Take me out to the beach,
Help me to pick up the bottle caps,
And find ways to recycle the trash.
And there's oil from boats in the Chesapeake,
The rockfish and oysters are mad!
Stop! Help the Chesapeake and
Save the Day... Hooray!

This Bay Is Your Bay
sung to the tune of "This Land is Your Land"

This bay is your bay,
This bay is my bay,
From our own school,
All the way to Baltimore.
From the longest rivers,
To the deepest oceans,
This bay was made for you and me.

As I was fishing, I saw a rockfish.
It was so slimy, and trapped in plastic.
I helped the rockfish,
And recycled the plastic
What can we do to save our world?

To relive some of my favorite memories with Linda Rivers making magic and music with my former students, check out the links below:

• A Very Full Earth Day Bay Week
  
• ECS Earth Week Day 1 & 2
• Earth Week Excitement
• Eco Songs: We've Been Workin' On the River
• Eco Songs: Terrapins, Terrapins
• Eco Songs: We Will, We Will...Recycle
• Garbage, Garbage, Garbage, Garbage... GARBAGE
• Small Actions Do Make a Monumental Difference
• Earth Day and Bay Week's Eagle Cove Eco Concert
• SLYMI: Sing Like You Mean It

For other ways to visit Linda Richards (because you know you want to)...
Check out her music album that she released earlier this year. (An easy place to get it is iTunes.)
To see the types of music programs she could bring to your school, center, or event go to her Programs page.

Images from our school's photographer; SLYMI logo from http://www.slymi.net/.

Happy Earth Day 2015

As a person who has come to travel the path o'green (the one that has nothing to do with the Blarney Stone), Earth Day is a favorite holiday of mine.  Earth Days in school are particularly fun because you see these little human sponges just soaking in the knowledge.  They "get" it.  They see it.  They innately see the importance of talking about saving the environment & its resources. The environment a lot of time is the place that holds kids' play places (even in this TV-tech realm), their animals, the places they want to be barefoot outside in.  The place where their curiosity is ripe, and the place where hands-on learning just comes naturally.  Naturally in nature...naturally, of course.

Today at my school, we had a pretty neat (& new) event called the "Earth Day Family Maker Night."  It was a fabulous night of invention, upcycling, reusing, creating, & celebrating Earth Day.  It's something definitely worth sharing, and will be featured here sometime soon.  Additionally, a week ago, we had Celine Cousteau, granddaughter of oceanographer Jacques Cousteau, come to campus as part of a commemorative lecture series. That's another dynamic eco-piece I'm eager to write about as it was fascinating.

But for tonight, this most sacred of environmental holidays, I'm wanting to pay tribute to the most greenest of schools I've ever known, a school that holds many a memory, but yet unfortunately is now a memory itself.  Tonight, I'm honoring the 8-year MD "Green" School Eagle Cove, which closed its doors the last time last June, shortly after its final 5th grade Graduation.  Eagle Cove School was a place where "Earth Day" was not a just day, but a week, an annual event, & a lot of fun.
It was the place:

• Where Earth Day musicals happened every year as created by our amazingly creative science & music teachers;

•  Where a marvelous musician named Linda Richards came every year & brought her talent to our troops to create eco-parodies and a fabulous musical show (that was often held outdoors, river-side);

• Where children's book writer and environmentalist Jennifer Keats Curtis always came and shared her writing wisdom with our young learners;

• Where solar car races happened, birdhouses were put up, vegetables were planted in the greenhouse, animals were introduced to us, and we might even get a bit wet in the campus-side river;

• Where we all were outdoors, doing so much, and kids were learning to become young naturalists and young activists.

Cheers to Eagle Cove, and my school family and friends.  Click here to relive some of the mighty memories of ECS's Earth Days & Weeks over the last several years.

"Happy Earth Day" 2015 pic created using the "Pic Collage" app; ECS farewell faculty pic from http://www.pasadenavoice.com/school-youth/community-says-farewell-eagle-cove-school, ECS "Dive Deep & Fly High" from http://ecsgreen.weebly.com/

Best. Field trip. Ever.

Cross curricular is the way to go.

Just like a recipe:   Combine a synchronized study of Rivers of the World and Bridges.  Insert some mapping.  Fold in in reading and writing.  Add in some environmental studies.  Mix in some math and measurement.  Then pepper in some paintbrushes, a scenic locale, and some creative water color techniques.

With all of this, you have the makings for a great field trip!

Combine with iMovie and you've got an excellent movie-style memoir!!! Check out our li'l video collection of 3rd graders hitting up Sandy Point State Park with paintbrushes in hand to "paint" the bridge!!!


"Painting" the Chesapeake Bay Bridge from Vicki Dabrowka on Vimeo. Pics from our adventure and a couple others via my Google search..

The Unfortunate Nest

About a week ago, my family and I were at my daughter's soccer game, rooting for her during one of the first really nice days of spring.  My son, of course, was on the move, so I went to track him down every once and awhile.  He was hanging out by the baseball diamond, so I touched base with him...at which point, he pointed up to the lights and said, "Hey mom, look at that!"

An osprey mom and pop (and we later saw little heads) were hanging out in the nest they had built on the lights.  The adults would fly out and back, perhaps looking for food.  What was almost more surprising and noticeable to my son was the flapping white plastic bag that was waving in the wind, as part of the nest.  (You can see it here in the picture as the white mass right under the osprey, which is in the top left hand corner of the lights structure.)

Reminded me of the Jennifer Keats Curtis environmental children's book "Osprey Adventure."  In that story, Pete and his Dad ("Doc") find the exact same thing on a channel marker, though a blue bag rather than my white one.  Unlike me, Doc is a wildlife expert who was trained to check osprey nests for trash (and successfully remove it without harming or scaring the bird).  Not to mention, at the height of the lights, there was little I could do about the situation other than discuss it with my son.  Lucky for him, he's got an eco-warrior for a mom, and was already schooled in the perils of plastic.

Lucky for us both, Jennifer Keats Curtis will be visiting us this week at Eagle Cove School for our Earth Week (because one Earth Day just isn't enough at our Maryland "Green" School).

To get schooled more in the "perils of plastic" and "Osprey's Adventure" (a great book), check out the following links.  (Note to self:  If you see plastic trash floating about or laying around, pick it up and dispose of it properly to keep it out of the way of wildlife!!)

• My October 2009 Green Team Gazette Newsletter synopsis on "Osprey's Adventure"

• My October 31, 2010 blog post: "This Halloween: 1). Watch Out for Witches' Drawers, and 2). Don't Get Buried"

• My November 27, 2012 blog post:  "The Power of Plastic in Pictures"   

•  Jennifer Keats Curtis' visits (and more) to Eagle Cove School in 2012, 2011, 2011--terrapin focus, 2011--Maryland Life, 2010, and 2010--books focus'

• Click here if you are in the Maryland area and would like to schedule a school visit or set up a writing workshop/residency with a phenomenal author and environmentalist:  Jennifer Keats Curtis.

Osprey Nest image from my camera this April, "Osprey Adventure" pic and photo of Jennifer Keats Curtis from http://www.jenniferkeatscurtis.com/

The House That ECS Built

The story of the 3 Little Pigs could have had a much different outcome had the pig family spent the day with Eagle Cove School on May 16th.  Those pigs could have gotten a lesson in sustainable building to make one heck of a wolf-proof straw bale house, had they combined their efforts and worked as a team!!

Lucky for us at Eagle Cove School, we got that tutorial and that experience from our Green Roof orchestrator, Mr. Rick Truett.  Last Thursday we were finally able to have our "hold-out assembly" from our ECS Earth Week (due to rainy weather rearing its head and causing us to postpone it).
Here's a YouTube example (to a much grander scale) of the process that Rick Truett directed our "10 yrs. old  and under" set to do.


After a short info session complete with slides of what sustainable, renewable architecture and building looks like (and how some German "wattle and daub" houses have held up for over 800 years), the PreK to 4th grade students got their assignments for the day. They all involved pulling up their sleeves and getting a little dirty (if not a little straw-prickly)!

Second through fourth graders started out around 9:30 am by splitting into 3 groups:
1). The Foundation Builders moved some pre-used sidewalk slate rectangles to the building site to form the foundation. Muscles were heavily used!

2).  The Soil Crew unloaded Mr. Rick's truck, with shovels in hand.  This dirt would be used to make the necessary mud later on.

3).  The Straw Balers moved the straw bales to the site and started laying them in place, almost as if they were laying big prickly bricks. 

Metal poles were paced in the 3-4 layers of bales to pin them in place. The kids filled the corners between the bales with excess straw to make it even more compact, filling in all the gaps.

During lunch, our ECS Sci Guy and Mr. Rick placed some top beams and roofing in place so that the PreK'ers, Kindergartners, and first graders could start the dirty part of the program:  mudding the walls.  (Of course, if it was a more traditional hut, dung would have been added to the mix for additional strength and durability, but for obvious reasons, we skipped that ingredient!!)  Based on the twinkle in a few of these kids' eyes, I think the urge was strong to hug a teacher or two while covered from head to toe in mud!

Time got the better of use (isn't that always the case), and the kids only got an opportunity to do about half of the exterior.  If given time to do it fully, inside and out and pack the mud into the outer layer of these regular Home Depot-style straw bales (as opposed to the much denser building-grade bales), Rick assured us that our structure could last up to 20 years.  Not to shabby for a structure built by our student population!!  As it is, this one will probably last a year or two before it starts to break down and biodegrade.  But, in the interim, it'll make for a fun homemade addition to our playground, teaching the kids a little bit about how eco-friendly and sturdy building can be--without the use of petroleum-based plastics which come from non-renewable resources.

I'm not sure how old those three Li'l Pigs were, but I think they could have learned a thing or two from our ECS four- to ten-year olds.  Our straw bale sustainable structure could (and maybe should) now come with not only a "green seal of approval," but also a "wolf-proof certification" too!!

All in total, reminds me a little bit about another structure ~ Check out this video from Hug It Forward.


Images from:

Wattle and Daub labeled pic from http://www.petitemartinique.com/masonry.htm, German style Wattle and Daub house from http://www.buildingscience.com/documents/insights/bsi-033-evolution, YouTube video from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUuMl75Z9UY&feature=related; Hug it Forward "How to Build a School Out of Plastic" video from http://hugitforward.org/;  all other pics from my camera!

A Beautiful Eco-Inspired Friendship

As the line from Casablanca goes: "This looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

And so goes our Eagle Cove School's [ECS] Earth Week 2012 adventure with Kensington, Maryland's Grace Episcopal Day School [GEDS].

It's amazing what an old friendship with a former colleague (don't even ask how many years ago we taught together!!), an environmental education blog, Facebook, a school with a river shoreline and a view of the Chesapeake Bay, another school with a year-long study of said-mentioned bay, a hint of inspiration, and two months of prep time can give you.

Pairing up our ECS PreK to 5th graders and GEDS's 1st--5th graders doubled our campus population for a day, giving us six groups of 20 or so kids each to travel through the day together.   It more-than-doubled our campus' energy level and excitement for the day!! Here was our day's schedule:

 

The problem with a day like this is you want to be everywhere simultaneously!  I was running the iPad QR Code eco-scavenger hunt which took us from one end of the campus to the other scanning bar codes and answering questions about the "3 Sisters in Native American heritage," finding our on-campus nest for "the fish hawk," and more.  Given my lead in this activity, I was only with my own students for about 1/3 of the day. Additionally, I didn't get the pictures/sights I'd have loved to have gotten of the kids who were seining, nature walking, or making paper with the art teachers. 

But no matter--there were smiling faces at just about every turn... not to mention new friendships being made. Additionally, there was mutual energy in our multi-modal activities where senses were activated, music abounded, and art surrounded us; where we delved into environmental literature (and writing activities) with visiting author Maryland "Green" author Jennifer Keats Curtis, and we dove head-first into STEM activities surrounding nature studies.  The outdoors governed the day and served as the catalyst for collaboration.

Then of course... Let's not forget:  The Half Time Entertainment--"Jack and the Green Stalk!!!"  
More than a play, "Jack and the Green Stalk" was the brainchild of our science and music teachers--a musical performance complete with guitar and student recorders playing "Stairway to Heaven" as the magic beans grew from the compost heap where they were tossed. The music continued while Jack (short for Jacqueline because her father always wanted a boy) and her musical rendition of a modified version of "Shall I Stay or Shall I Go." Name a better song to sing while trying to decide whether or not to climb a magic beanstalk (which, of course, you know she did).

It was probably what Jack found atop the "green stalk" that was most surprising to Jack... not to mention the captivated audience.  The 8.5 foot giant, who was not only super-human (in both size and animation), but was also fiery, fierce, and full of "his" Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum. Did I mention the giant could chase Jack like a pro? Add in the "Magical Golden Bin" (hmmm... looking remarkably like our county's recycle bins)--"if only we ALL had one--look what we could do."  Did I mention the Singing Harp?  Oh yeah:  Our science and music teachers/directors took Grimm's Fairy Tales to brand new heights!!

So: WHAT A DAY!!  (Even better--we had a raccoon sighting on our nature trail! Check out the tiny guy in the center of the picture to the right!)  Of course the weather couldn't have cooperated more. At the end of the day, we waved goodbye to our new friends, and we also started counting down the days until we meet again.  (This, we're delighted, will be very soon as the ECS 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders trek down the Baltimore-Washington Corridor in a few short weeks to continue our friendship and exchange of ideas down GEDS's way.

Yes, indeed... What a day!!  Most certainly: It looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Earth Week Excitement

I'm a little befuddled that Earth Day was a week ago already, and I'm only just getting back here! I think in the aftermath of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride (which is what I like to call getting named the private school "Teacher of the Year" in my county) and an amazing Earth Week of daily celebration at Eagle Cove School, that's just how it happens. I have a lot stored up to write about, so it'll probably trickle in here over the next several days in several posts.

Earth Week's excitement this past week included the following:

An article came out in the Bay Weekly (a local weekly gazette), timed specifically for Earth Day, highlighting the eco-side of life, me, Eagle Cove School, and GTG: "Little Actions, Big Effects: Changing the World Begins with Small Steps Even a Third Grader Can Manage.   It is here you'll see me in all my Capri Sun glory from above!

Solar Car Races ~ The Pasadena Patch has a nice article about our day at the races thanks to Solar Energy World and the cars our 5th graders built and each class designed.  The Patch also has a nice video of the sun at work, pushing each vehicle closer and closer to the finish line!

An action-packed outdoor adventure day with visiting 1st--5th graders from Grace Episcopal Day School (from Kensington, MD).  To help enhance their yearlong study of the Chesapeake Bay, Eagle Cove invited them to come and hang out with us for the day for: seining in the Magothy River, cast netting, geocaching with iPads on an eco-QR code quest (complete with an impromptu raccoon sighting), paper making using recycled paper, nature trail hikes, and a visit from local children's author Jennifer Keats Curtis. The grand finale... a student musical production from our 2nd, 3rd, and 4th graders (written and directed by our science and music teachers) entitled "Jack and the Green Stalk."  Oh yeah, this day alone is a whole other post!!

Songwriting from our annual favorite visiting musician, Linda Richards from New York.  She has a knack for creating amazing songs with each class that are parodies of time-honored songs like "Row Row Row Your Boat."  In a half hour, magic happens as the kids and Linda write an environmentally-based song that we then perform the next day at a fabulous Earth Week culmination concert that has us all moving and grooving in our seats.  Yes, magic in motion, and a great way to end up the week!!

Oh, and we also met the challenge for a completely "trash-free" week, with everything finding its way back home for reuse, the recycling bin, or the classroom compost buckets!!   

So that's the snapshot of our action-packed week, with more to come since everyone should enjoy our "green" week of fun!!

Garbage, Garbage, Garbage, Garbage... GARBAGE

When Linda Richards was here last week at Eagle Cove School's Bay Week Concert, she sang one of her usuals, and one of my perinnial favorites that she sings each year:  "Garbage, Garbage, Garbage."

Below, the song is performed with a little help from the perfect helper:  Oscar the Grouch.  

Interestingly in the video, it is during the Clearwater Concert to celebrate Pete Seeger's 90th birthday.  Pete Seeger adapted the 1969 Bill Steele version of the song by adding the 4th verse.  In a "1 degree of separation," Linda Richards has spent many years in the past as Pete Seeger's Chief On-Board-Educator on his "sloop" The Clearwater, a sailing vessel he co-founded in 1969 to use as a way to educate about the pollution in New York's Hudson River.

Definitely gets you thinking about the perils of over-pollution and garbage, garbage, garbage, GARBAGE!

Garbage Lyrics ~ Pete Seeger

Mister Thompson calls the waiter, orders steak and baked potato

Then he leaves the bone and gristle and he never eats the skins;

The busboy comes and takes it, with a cough contaminates it

And puts it in a can with coffee grinds and sardine tins;

The truck comes by on Friday and carts it all away;

And a thousand trucks just like it are converging on the Bay, oh,

Garbage (garbage, garbage, garbage) Garbage!

We're filling up the sea with garbage (garbage...)

What will we do when there's no place left

To put all the garbage? (garbage...)

Mr. Thompson starts his Cadillac and winds it down the freeway track

Leaving friends and neighbors in a hydro-carbon haze;

He's joined by lots of smaller cars all sending gases to the stars.

There they form a seething cloud that hangs for thirty days.

And the sun licks down into it with an ultraviolet tongue.

Till it turns to smog and settles down and ends up in our lungs, oh,

Garbage (garbage...) Garbage!

We're filling up the sky with garbage (garbage...)

What will we do

When there's nothing left to breathe but garbage (garbage...)

Getting home and taking off his shoes he settles down with the evening news,

While the kids do homework with the TV in one ear

While Superman for the thousandth time sells talking dolls and conquers crime

Dutifully they learn the date of birth of Paul Revere.

In the paper there's a piece about the mayor's middle name,

And he gets it done in time to watch the all-star bingo game, oh,

Garbage (garbage...)

We're filling up our minds with garbage

Garbage (garbage...)

What will we do when there's nothing left to read

And there's nothing left to need

And there's nothing left to watch

And there's nothing left to touch

And there's nothing left to walk upon

And there's nothing left to talk upon

Nothing left to see

And there's nothing left to be but

Garbage (garbage...)

In Mister Thompson's factory, they're making plastic Christmas trees

Complete with silver tinsel and a geodesic stand

The plastic's mixed in giant vats from some conglomeration

That's been piped from deep within the earth or strip-mined from the land.

And if you question anything, they say, "Why, don't you see?

It's absolutely needed for the economy," oh,

Oh, Garbage! Garbage! Garbage! Garbage!

There stocks and their bonds -- all garbage!

Garbage! Garbage! Garbage! Garbage!

What will they do when their system goes to smash

There's no value to their cash

There's no money to be made

But there's a world to be repaid

Their kids will read in history books

About financiers and other crooks

And feudalism, and slavery

And nukes and all their knavery

To history's dustbin they're consigned

Along with many other kinds of garbage.

Garbage! Garbage! Garbage! Garbage!

Video from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAyom4zZUM4&feature=related 

From Pete Seeger's 90th Birthday Concert (Clearwater Concert), Madison Square Garden, 5/3/09. Featuring: Tom Chapin, Michael Mask, & Oscar the Grouch.

Lyrics from http://www.lyricsondemand.com/p/peteseegerlyrics/garbagelyrics.html

Oscar the Grouch pic from http://www.jambase.com/Articles/17878/Celebrating-Pete-Seeger-Voice-Of-The-People

Linda Richard pic from my camera when she was here last week during our Bay Week Concert

A Very Full Earth Day-Bay Week

When you start the week with children's author Jennifer Keats Curtis coming to visit and inspire us to write, then on Day #2 having a double showing of an original "green" theatrical treat of an eco-remake of "The Wizard of Oz," you kind of wonder where on Earth you can go during Bay Week as you progress to Earth Day.  

Well, let me tell you, there was no disappointment anywhere.  At Eagle Cove School, we were the eagles that just kept soaring!!

This week, we wrote letters to the director of Anne Arundel County Recycling as well as our county executive about why it was important to modify our recycling bins so as not to let a windy day pollute our bay.  We wrote Earth Day Haikus (which is trickier than it sounds) for the Earth Day Haiku Contest (co-sponsored by PlanetPals, The Haiku Society of America; With Words; and Sketchbook Haiku Journal), we've been reading Operation Redwood by S. Terrell French as our read aloud, we studied "rivers" in social studies and talked about the many ways rivers can be polluted.  

And then, the week, really rocked!  Quite literally!!

A major part of our Bay Week the last 4 years has involved a special visit from Linda Richards (http://www.lindarichardsadventures.com/song-gallery). Trekking down from NY state, Linda is a singer-songwriter-mega environmentalist extraordinaire.  Musically, she's amazing, but the truly fun part is that she gets each classroom together and inspires them to write "eco" parodies of familiar tunes and turns them into performers after a short half hour.  

So Wednesday, she had a whirlwind of a day, hitting up all 7 of our PreK to 5th grade classrooms, putting everyone into creation-mode.  Then Thursday, the Bay Week Concert occurred where, for an hour and half, we were in an environmental musical mecca!!  Singing old favorites from past years when she's been to visit (my personal favorite = "Garbage, Garbage, Garbage, GARBAGE") ... to sharing the newly ECS-created tunes.  Truly, I may have to digress later in another blog entry about the great, showstopping tunes she shared!!

But WAIT!  There's More!!

Given a winter of over-used snow days, we had to attend school today (Good Friday) for a half day.  However, when this day is also Earth Day, we knew how to soften the blow!  In honor of March 22nd's World Water Day, we broke our student population into 3 groups:  PreK/Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd, and 3rd--5th.  We led each group on a one-mile "Water Walk" with 5 buckets that as a total held 2 gallons of water.  Our mission:  to walk approximately that 3.7 mile journey that over 1 billion people world wide walk daily in search of clean drinking water.  Using teamwork and just plain determination, the youngest of our clients felt it the most, revealing that it was much harder than they originally thought.  

 

I had the perspective of seeing it all as I walked all 3+ miles, and even a fourth grader commented that although it wasn't really heavy, the pressure of the weight really wore on your arm.  There's no way to see someone else's life until you walk a mile in their shoes, and we did just that!!  We managed our mission with only a few drops lost; but even more, we worked as a community to get things done, gaining empathy as we went.  While the water walkers walked, the other 2 groups took part in community-building group games with our science teacher, Tim Decker, and Linda Richards.  True, little "book learnin'" took place during that hour and a half or so, but the life lessons were rich and community-building/awareness skills-learning were endless!

After our water victory, we united as a group in the auditorium to watch the Disneynature: Oceans.  Narrated by Pierce Brosnan, the movie has a very "David Attenborough" feel. In watching it, you get a sense of the vastness of the ocean!  The imagery is amazing...from diving dolphins to amazing octopus to soaring seabirds at a sardine smorgasbord!  It truly is amazingly mind-boggling the number of fish in a school!  Secondarily amazing was the sight of a gym/auditorium filled with 4 to 10  year olds in theatre darkness, completely glued to this nature movie, rooting for the baby sea turtles as they were making their way to the water while trying to escape the looming seabirds!!

All in all, our Earth Day/Bay Week at Eagle Cove School, the Maryland "Green" School I call home, was a grand success.  Once again, we managed to top the previous year!  For a time, you wonder if you'll be able to top it next year--at this point, I know we will!  

Happy Earth Day!

Images from:

Earth Day:  http://www.thegogreenblog.com; Earth Day Eagle:  http://www.zazzle.com; Earth Stamp:  http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/earthday/; Oceans: http://www.amazon.com; All other pics from my camera!